Africa is slowly but surely tearing in two . Like anything in geology , it ’s an extremely tenacious cognitive operation that will take one thousand thousand of year , but it will eventually see part of East Africa chipping off from the residue of the continent , likely resulting in a new sea spring up between the two landed estate masses .
The colossal breakup is link with the East African Rift System ( EARS ) , one of the largest rifts in the world that debase down for thousands of klick through several countries in Africa , including Ethiopia , Kenya , the Democratic Republic of the Congo , Uganda , Rwanda , Burundi , Zambia , Tanzania , Malawi , and Mozambique .
This rift organization means that the African home base is separate into two plates – the smaller Somali plate and the larger Nubian shell – that are pull away from each other at a super - sluggish snail ’s pace of millimeters per year , according to a2004 study .
Map of East Africa showing some of the historically active volcanoes (red triangles), as well the two parts of the African Plate (the Nubian and the Somalian) splitting along the East African Rift Zone. Image credit: USGS
Back in 2018 , news program of a crack emerge in Kenya went viral with many claim that this was evidence of Africa snarl in two before our eyes . While this startling scene was connect to the EARS , it ’s a mo shoddy to acquaint it as live evidence of Africa ’s great split - up .
AsIFLSciencereported at the time , this was potential just a extremely localized expression of the valley ’s regular rifting activeness . The ear has been in this current procedure for around 25 million years ago and the crack in Kenya was an indirect voicelessness of what ’s occurring on the continent .
However , in another 5 million to 10 million years , change in the EARS could lead in a drastically different - looking humanity . Around this timeframe , we are likely to see a young sea mannikin between the Somali plate and the Nubian dental plate . The great continent of Africa will lose its eastern shoulder and a vast sea will cut off East Africa .
As strange as this may seem , it ’s deserving remembering that Earth ’s surface isin a constant state of flux density ; it ’s just so slow that human experience ca n’t account for it .
The appearance of the world as we know it is comparatively new . The land and sea we see today – of Eurasia , the Americas , Africa , Antarctica , and Oceania – are the product of vast tectonic plates that slot together like a jigsaw teaser . Very slowly , however , these jigsaw piece move around on a timescale of millions of years .
Just think of the split - up that the Earth sawaround 138 million year agowhen South America and Africa split up . If you attend at the west coast of Africa and the east coast of South America , you ’ll notice they equip together like two scroll saw pieces , attractively play up how these continents were once get together as one .
The departure of East Africa will just be another varlet in this jumbo geologic storybook . Who knows whether mankind will be around to see any of these change , but itdoesn’t look too promising .
